Saturday, 19 December 2015

Seeking inspiration for an unusual Christmas present?

Copies of True Tales from the Old Hill, the Frogmore anthology of life writing, and The Needlewriters, showcasing poetry and prose from writers who have read at Needlewriters events, are both available from The Frogmore Press (£10 per copy, or £8 to contributors) or from Skylark bookshop in the Needlewriters (£10 per copy).

Catherine Smith's The New Cockaigne (£5) and Clare Best's Cell (£10) would make an excellent present for the poetry lover in your life.

Sunday, 6 December 2015

The Frogmore
Press has recently launched two new publications. 26 November saw the launch at the Red Roaster
in Brighton of Clare Best’s Cell, which
has been variously described as a ‘not-quite-pamphlet’ and a ‘folding artefact’.
Cell is a poem in twelve sections
with illustrations in charcoal by Michaela Ridgway. It tells the story of
Christine Carpenter, a fourteen year old who took vows of silent devotion in
1329 and was enclosed in a cell in St James’ Church, Shere.

Beautifully designed
by Katy Mawhood, Cell has been
described by Helena Nelson as ‘a potent tale for our times’. It is a unique
publication, available exclusively from The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes
BN7 1PJ at £10.00 per copy.

Michaela Ridgway and Clare Best at the launch of Cell

On 1 December
True Tales from the Old Hill, the
anthology of life writing published in collaboration with the Centre for LifeHistory and Life Writing Research at the University of Sussex, enjoyed a second
outing at the Elephant and Castle in Lewes. Inspired by Paul Auster’s True Tales of American Life and edited
by Rachel Cole and Jeremy Page with Katie Leacock and Sally Willow, the
anthology includes more than fifty ‘true tales’ by contributors resident in or
near Lewes, many of them – Mikey Cuddihy, Beth Miller, Minoli Salgado and Janet
Sutherland among them – familiar names.

True
Tales from the Old Hill is available post free from The Frogmore Press also
at £10.00 per copy.

The volume is edited by Rachel Cole and Jeremy Page, with Katie Leacock and Sally Willow. It features strange but true tales by more than forty writers, including Clare Best, Caroline Clark, Mikey Cuddihy, Minoli Salgado and Janet Sutherland. Copies are available post-free from The Frogmore Press, 21 Mildmay Road, Lewes BN7 1PJ at £10.

The editors of True Tales from the Old Hill

The autumn edition of The Frogmore Papers (No. 86) also appeared. Poets in the issue include Sharon Black, Sam Gardiner, D A Prince, Kay Syrad adn Lorna Thorpe. All poems shortlisted by John McCullough for this year's Frogmore Poetry Prize, won by Sarah Barr, also feature. And there is prose from Jane McLaughlin, whose short story Same as Ever inspired Peter Cole's much admired cover featuring a naked man sporting a flower pot on his head, three snow leopards and a wheelbarrow.

A new edition of morphrog is scheduled to go live in January.
The deadline for submissions to the 30th Frogmore Poetry Prize, adjudicated by Catherine Smith, is 31 May 2016.

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Mid-October sees two significant poetry events on consecutive days in Lewes:

On Wednesday, 14 October the 52nd issue of South Poetry Magazine will be launched at Cluny Hall (7.30pm. £3). The contents of this issue were selected by Frogmore writers Robin Houghton and Jeremy Page, who will both read alongside other contributors.

Caroline Clark

On Thursday 15 October Frogmore poets Caroline Clark and Matthew Stewart will read their poetry at Needlewriters at the Needlemakers. Their readings will bookend a reading by Ros Barber from her new novel Devotion (7.45pm, £5). Books by all three writers will be available on the day from Skylark bookshop in Lewes.

Sunday, 23 August 2015

In
2016 the Frogmore Prize will be awarded for the 30th consecutive
year, and we are delighted that Catherine Smith has agreed to adjudicate.
Catherine will read all entries for the Prize with a view to selecting the
winner of the 2016 Prize, who will join a distinguished list that includes
Sharon Black, Tobias Hill, Mario Petrucci and Lesley Saunders. Four poets have
achieved the extraordinary in winning the Prize on more than one occasion. They
are Caroline Price (three times), and John Latham, Emily Wills and Howard
Wright (twice each).

All
shortlisted poems will be published in the September 2016 issue of The
Frogmore Papers (number 88) and on the Frogmore Press website. The
entry fee remains unchanged at £3.00 per poem, and the Prize fund totals 375
guineas.

This
year’s Prize-winning poem by Sarah Barr and the other shortlisted poems will
all appear in number 86 of The Frogmore Papers next month.

Adjudicator: Catherine Smith will read all poems submitted
for the 30th Frogmore Poetry Prize. She is the author of three full
collections of poetry: The Butcher’s Hands (2003), Lip (2007) and
Otherwhere (2012), all published by Smith Doorstop. The Butcher’s
Hands won the Aldeburgh/Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection, and Lip
was shortlisted for the 2008 Forward Prize for Best Collection. The Frogmore
Press published The New Cockaigne, a ‘rollicking ballad of revolution
and fantastical carnal excess’ in 2014.

Conditions of Entry

1 Poems must be in
English, unpublished, and not accepted for future publication.

2 Poems should be
typed and no longer than forty lines.

3 Any number of
poems may be entered on payment of the appropriate fee of £3 per poem. Cheques and postal orders should be made
payable to The Frogmore Press.

4 The following
methods of payment are acceptable: cheque drawn on UK bank; British postal
order; sterling.

5 Each poem should
be on a separate sheet, which should not include the name of the author.

6 The author’s
name and address should be provided on an accompanying sheet of paper.

7 The winner,
runners-up and shortlisted poets will be notified by post. All shortlisted
poems will appear in number 88 of The
Frogmore Papers (September 2016), which will be available at £5.00 from the
address below, and on the Frogmore Press website.

8 To receive a
copy of the results, please enclose an s.a.e. marked ‘Results’.

9 Poems cannot be
returned.

10 Closing date for
submissions: 31 May 2016.

11 Copyright of all
poems submitted will remain with the authors but the Frogmore Press reserves
the right to publish all shortlisted poems.

12 The adjudicator’s
decision will be final and no correspondence can be entered into.

Friday, 10 July 2015

The eleventh
edition of morphrog, edited by Jeremy Page and Peter Stewart, is now live at http://www.morphrog.com/ and features poetry in the extreme
from Nisha Bhakoo, John Brookes, Dane Cobain, Scott Elder, Allison Grayhurst,
Antony Johae, Craig Kurtz, Jeffrey Loffman, Donal Mahoney, Paul Matthews, John
Alwyine-Mosely, Diana Reed, David Romanda, Michelle Villanueva and Rob Yates.

September
will see the publication of the 86th edition of The Frogmore
Papers, featuring all the poems shortlisted for this year’s Frogmore Poetry
Prize, including winner Sarah Barr and runners-up Peter Marshall and Frances Corkey Thompson. The issue will also feature some of the last unpublished poems
by Tom Duddy, who died in 2012.

Thursday, 2 July 2015

The Frogmore Poetry Prize for 2015
has been awarded to Dorset poet Sarah Barr by adjudicator John McCullough.

Of
her Prize-winning poem McCullough says:'January' uses form to create and complicate meaning in
highly suggestive ways. The disjunctions between its stanzas evoke the sudden
leaps of a mind actively thinking, the white spaces inviting us to imagine
what's going on beneath the clipped surface of the language. Its first line is
arresting and it draws much from ostensibly simple phrasing ('Perhaps it's
natural...'). It carries on unfolding inside the reader once we have finished:
a magnificent achievement and a worthy winner.’

First runner-up was Peter Marshall from Basingstoke, who is a previous
winner of the Prize (in 2007) and second runner-up was Frances Corkey Thompson
from Ilfracombe, who has previously been short-listed for the Prize (in 2013).
Next year will see the Frogmore Prize, which was established by the Frogmore
Foundation in 1987, awarded for the 30th consecutive year.

Sunday, 31 May 2015

Catherine Smith's recent Frogmore Press pamphlet The New Cockaigne has received a glowing review from Scott Pack at Me And My Big Mouth:"A funny and thought-provoking prose poem in which a new nihilist republic is declared, group sex is encouraged, pies rain from the sky and farting becomes a comeptitive sport. Made me chuckle more than once."

Copies are available for only £5 (post free) from The Frogmore Press.

Autumn will see two further Frogmore publications: Cell by Clare Best and True Tales from the Old Hill, an anthology of life writing edited by Rachel Cole and Jeremy Page, in collaboration with the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research at the University of Sussex.

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

The deadline for submissions to this year's (29th) Frogmore Poetry Prize is fast approaching (31 May 2015). Adjudicator John McCullough, author of the highly acclaimed The Frost Fairs, will read all the entries and the entire shortlist of ten will be published in the September issue of The Frogmore Papers.

In March a substantial anthology of poetry and prose by writers who have read at Needlewriters in Lewes will be published. In early summer a new pamphlet by Clare Best will appear. And the autumn will see the publication of an anthology of life writing in collaboration with the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research at the University of Sussex. See here for the Call for Submissions (deadline 31 March 2015).

Image copyright: Neil Gower/Viva Lewes

Numbers 85 and 86 of The Frogmore Papers will appear in March and September respectively, the latter containing all poems shortlisted for this year's (29th) Frogmore Poety Prize, to be adjudicated by John McCullough.